The Rebel & The Rose by Joan Wolf

Author:Joan Wolf [Wolf, Joan]
Language: por
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

The Clove, New Jersey July 24, 1777

My Dearest Wife,

I received your letters of June 18 and 25 and July 3 yesterday. This is all the reply I can manage at

the moment, as we are to march for Philadelphia tomorrow. Word has just reached us that the British

Navy took off most of General Howe’s troops from New York, and General Washington feels their des

tination is the capital.

This letter should reach you without mishap, as one of my officers who is going home to recuperate

from illness has promised to see it delivered personally. The erratic post from Virginia is very irritating—

you are all so good about writing to me, and the letters arrive so irregularly. However, to, answer some

of the concerns in your last letters:

I was very pleased to hear that Libby desires to marry Charles Dwight. He always seemed to me an

excellent young man and if he has the patronage of George Wythe he will be universally respected and

esteemed. I know he is poor, but Libby has enough of a portion from my father to see them safely

established. I also know Mr. Dwight’s father was an indentured servant—but, sweetheart, so was Ed-

mund Pendleton’s, and there are few men more respected than he in all of Virginia. America is not like

England. A man’s parentage does not predestine him to a certain place in society here—there is plenty of

room for him to rise by his own merits.

Speaking of merits, Congress has seen fit to raise me from the rank of colonel to that of brigadier

general. If only they would cease to bombard us with swarms of French officers who insist they are

entitled, because of their glorious records on European battlefields, to one of the very highest commands

in the American Army. His excellency is weary of them and so are we all. Greene, Knox, and Sullivan

actually threatened to resign if a Frenchman named du Coudray was appointed head of the artillery over

Knox. All has been resolved for the present, however, and Knox is still our artillery commander.

As to Robert’s desire to join the Continental Army—sweetheart,, I can’t stop him if that is what he

wishes. I know he is in the militia, but there has been no fighting’ in Virginia since the war began. Please

God, there will never be any fighting in Virginia. It’s—selfish of me, I suppose, but one of the things that

sustains me is the thought of Newland, safe and secure and the same.

I fear there is no chance of my getting leave to come home for a visit. His excellency needs all the

strong, steady support he can get. It is not easy, keeping an army in the field under the conditions that

Congress imposes. I understand Mr. Adams wanted a new commander in chief to be elected every year!

The man must be mad.

My Virginians have been splendid. When their terms of enlistment were up, two-thirds of them

enlisted again. They are splendid fellows, but they need to see that I set the example. No, I simply cannot

come home for a month or so, Barbara, much as I long to see you and.

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